General Discussion and Whimsical Banter

dlevene

GibbsRule_No3. said:

I am happy to just transfer the current ISA into a new Nationwide option, (assume there will be one).

I mean if you just want to stick to Nationwide, presumably they'll have given you options and you just need to decide which you prefer...

If the Nationwide ISA is now an easy access ISA, you don't need to do anything. If it was a fixed term, I assume they'll have transferred it to an easy access ISA; you can either keep it there, or if you want to open a new fixed term ISA with them and then transfer the old year's balance in. Bearing in mind Nationwide's rates can be beaten.

GibbsRule_No3. said:

 I might even like to add the £2600 savings from the one year, monthly £200 savings account, I'd like a new option for that as well, since I'm hoping to continue working and should be able to afford the £200 a month, getting me ready for when I do finally retire.

As I said, you can transfer (not deposit: remember, never withdraw and deposit ISA balances manually as you'll lose the tax wrapper) the previous year's ISA balance in, and deposit any new money from your old regular saver or anywhere else you want.

For a new regular saver, again, if you want to stick with Nationwide, then just pick the best option. Nationwide offer a 6.5% regular saver which is pretty good although not top of the table.

You mention retirement - have you consulted a pension planner? Retiring is a huge financial event and while £200 a month is all good and well (something always better than nothing), you're going to need something a bit longer term...

GibbsRule_No3. said:

That has a current Standing Order, would I need a new Standing Order to continue saving £200 a month?

You're really going to need to review what info Nationwide have sent you regarding maturity options. I'd assume a new regular saver account would need a new standing order but I don't know for sure.

GibbsRule_No3. said:

Would I be able to do that, the total sum would be still under the ISA limit and at present I don't need access to the money? I look at it as getting some interest where as before last year I never did anything to get any.

Your ISA limit is for new deposits into an ISA only. The transfer of the previous year's ISA doesn't count towards the limit - this is exactly why you want to transfer, not withdraw and redeposit. So if you opened a new ISA, transferred (say) £10k from the previous year's ISA, deposited £2600 from the previous year's regular saver, and then started saving £200/month in a new regular saver, you would only have used £2600 of this year's £20k ISA limit.

GibbsRule_No3.

dlevene,
Technically I am retired, I do work two days a week and get paid but decided last year I'd like to live on the monthly that I will have to play with when I don't do the two days work. Paying less tax will give me more from the Pensions but by not having the £200 a month to spend from my current account now, I'd hope I have a more accurate idea of my monthly money in "full" retirement. In receipt now of work and state pensions. The savings will be a little bonus to pay for treats rather than using the monthly money and stinting.

mebu60

If the 'new' State Pension of £221.20pw for 24/25 is going up 4.1% then why is the 25/26 amount only £230.25 instead of £230.27? Is there an official rounding policy does anyone know? 

masonic

mebu60 said:

If the 'new' State Pension of £221.20pw for 24/25 is going up 4.1% then why is the 25/26 amount only £230.25 instead of £230.27? Is there an official rounding policy does anyone know? 

Have they rounded up from 4.091094032549728752%?

mebu60

masonic said:

mebu60 said:

If the 'new' State Pension of £221.20pw for 24/25 is going up 4.1% then why is the 25/26 amount only £230.25 instead of £230.27? Is there an official rounding policy does anyone know? 

Have they rounded up from 4.091094032549728752%?

Possibly, as it was the average earnings component of the triple lock that yields the not quite 4.1% rise  Though my letter from DWP explicitly states 'The State Pension will increase by 4.1% from 7 April 2025' before short-changing me. 

Not yet been ablet to find the source that defines the actual average earnings figure. 

poppystar

mebu60 said:

If the 'new' State Pension of £221.20pw for 24/25 is going up 4.1% then why is the 25/26 amount only £230.25 instead of £230.27? Is there an official rounding policy does anyone know? 

Not sure on their rounding policy but the weekly rates always end in 0 or 5 (as in the £221.20 and the 230.25) going back the last ten years at least.  So maybe rounding to the nearest 5p? 

poppystar

That 2p a week x 52 x the number of state pensioners means they’re saving probably in excess of £12m in the year! 

dales1

mebu60 said:

Not yet been able to find the source that defines the actual average earnings figure. 

It's the annual average earnings increase for May to July 2024. This was originally announced as 4.0%.

But in September / October 2024 the figure was revised to 4.1% (at great cost to the Treasury!).

Like you, I can't find an official announcement of the 4.1%.

eskbanker

poppystar said:

That 2p a week x 52 x the number of state pensioners means they’re saving probably in excess of £12m in the year! 

According to Royal London research in 2023, only about half of the (then) 3.5m recipients of the new state pension were on the full whack, so this specific rounding would probably only account for less than £2m, even allowing for more new pensioners since then.

Assuming the rounding is up or down, there's no particular reason to suspect that on average the other pensioners would be 'contributing' in the same way!

SnowMan

poppystar said:

mebu60 said:

If the 'new' State Pension of £221.20pw for 24/25 is going up 4.1% then why is the 25/26 amount only £230.25 instead of £230.27? Is there an official rounding policy does anyone know? 

Not sure on their rounding policy but the weekly rates always end in 0 or 5 (as in the £221.20 and the 230.25) going back the last ten years at least.  So maybe rounding to the nearest 5p? 

Yes that's right I think, it's rounded to the nearest 5p. If you start at £155.65 in 2016/2017 you can replicate all the subsequent years figures. So there's no bias to rounding up or down, it all cancels over time.

In excel you can use the following formula to so check it where A1 is the previous year figure and B1 is the percentage increase

=ROUND(A1*(1+B1)/5,2)*5